


Toward Better Things

by completetheory



Category: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Origin Story, Trans Female Character, Trans Friendly, Unethical Ghouling (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24172990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completetheory/pseuds/completetheory
Summary: A brief origin for Mercurio's birth, involvement in the Camarilla, and relocation from the Bronx to the City of Angels. Intended as a companion to Blankets the Night, as much of the headcanon behind it is the same. Includes a bonus cameo from Redemption that nobody asked for, but everyone ought to love Redemption as I do. Otherwise, I suffer alone.
Kudos: 5





	Toward Better Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MadScientific](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadScientific/gifts).



The fever grip of summer in late September of 1946 showed no signs of slackening on the night Michel Deal made the mistake of going out. If the old Ventrue had stayed indoors, perhaps none of the ensuing mess would have happened.

But Ventrue were born to involve themselves in messes, so it was for the best. 

New York City's assistant attorney general had no plans, out for a rare free evening, though she enjoyed work and did not begrudge her position as local aide to the Strategoi. She didn't get more than ten feet the street before a small woman barreled into her. Deal didn't reel back, of a natural fortitudinal bent that the only thing that would really affect her would be a car at top speed. 

And if it had been a car, for the sake of the Masquerade, it might be best to at least seem hurt. _It's a miracle!_ carried less and less currency as the years advanced, and she was already struggling to disguise a very unfortunate German accent that singled her out in a post WWII environment as undesirable among kine. 

"What is it?" She gathered the small woman up and looked about, but no one seemed to be chasing her. The mobs, the police? It was a quiet, albeit smoggy evening, soft, lacking in urgency in almost all ways. All the coal and other industrial pollution made New York City most unwholesome, and she longed to strike out further west into the rural areas and make her own domain again. Perhaps somewhere underground... discreet. A mining town? 

"Are you Rudolf Brandl?" 

The name, unbidden from the woman's lips, and unheard since Deal had faked her death in Prague in 1199, was beyond any kine's ability to research. The Ventrue gathered her close, as if consoling her to any witnesses, and whispered, "Do I have a duty to serve you?" 

Her heartbeat, already bird frantic, picked up with wild hope. "Yes! Please, yes." Deal could tell, from the look on her face, that she was relieved, but heard, over her heart, a quieter heartbeat, just out of sync. She realized the woman had a bundle, and that she was being given this bundle with alarming trust, all at once. "Please take my baby." 

"That - is no longer how we do things," Deal wasn't sure if this was some bizarre human sacrifice, an escapee from a Sabbat cult, but she maintained an air of authority as she gently gathered the woman and baby back toward the building. 

"They're following. I don't know how close they are. I can't protect him. But you can. The Camarilla can. I just want him to be happy... I don't care if he grows up with all of this," Her voice was quiet but urgent, a steam kettle's hiss with pressure, "Please. I'm begging you." 

To placate the human, more than from any desire to actually involve herself, Deal did take the baby physically from her, ushering her inside and locking the door behind them. There was no one in the streets who seemed to be watching them. If she was half deranged and paranoid from fear, well. Kindred often felt the same, with lifetimes to learn to cope with what would later be called post traumatic stress. Deal stared down at the baby, who was sleeping soundly with a big satisfied fat face and a shock of dark, black hair. Based on the mother, if Deal had to guess, the child was of Italian descent. 

"All right. Tell me the story." 

Her eyes had the fright of a dove and the grim determination of a hawk, a beautiful contradiction that Deal found arresting, supporting the infant's head absently, holding them close to her chest. 

"There isn't time. I must lead them away from here."

"If they kill you, too?" Deal was earnest, "Let us help you both. The Camarilla has resources." 

"The Giovanni, too, have resources." Her words broke off brittle in response, "They will be here, in the city." 

Was it so important to them, to capture a ghoul and her baby? Deal looked puzzled. She seemed to intuit the question that the Ventrue found too rude to ask, and shook her head. 

"I'm not important. But what I represent... escape from their cult. They will want to punish this. I see from your face you don't know the Giovanni."

"I know Italian Kindred." Deal stroked the baby's hair, amused by it, already growing a little protective. "They're not so bad. But if this branch is hunting you, and would hurt you, then I will defend you, and the Camarilla will defend you. We can make you disappear, and you can return. Raise your child yourself, when it is safe, as one of our ghouls." 

From the look of her shoulders, she had been consigning herself to a horrible death for many months, and the way Deal spoke: she almost believed it.

"Let me make some calls. Come into the dining room. Don't get too near the windows." Deal advised, "I'll protect your baby... what is their name?" 

"I-..." She hesitated, then, "Mercurio." 

Within the space of ten minutes, a black limousine pulled up outside, and two Ventrue exited, the Elder taking the steps first. After some quiet conversation between themselves at the door, the Elder entered, confirmed the infant was the child of an escaped Giovanni ghoul, and took the baby from Deal. "Another car will come for you shortly." The Ventrue said to the woman, "What was your name?" 

"Amara. Please - please promise me you'll keep my baby safe." She clutched the Ventrue's arm, and Deal looked astonished, not incredibly old-school with respect and personal boundaries, but expecting this specific Ventrue to be so, but Amara received only a careful pat on the shoulder, not an admonishment. 

"I promise, Amara. On my word as Ventrue." Lynn gestured to her Childe, who hadn't said a word outside of those to the Sire, and who had fixed Deal with a look intense beyond her years - good lord. Deal as Brandl had lived since the 10th century, and there was kindled willpower in that young one that was promising for their clan. 

Lynn took the baby back out to the limo, sitting in the backseat across from LaCroix, benignly tucking the infant into her coat and bidding the driver go slow. 

"Are we not avoiding pursuit?" LaCroix questioned. 

"All the Italian Kindred in this city are ours." Lynn murmured, "I could have reassured her with this, or I could have frightened her more that we are infiltrated and gullible. No, the Giovanni would never dare move against us without a strong Sabbat alliance." 

LaCroix drank that in, and then lifted both hands. "Let me see the baby?" 

"Certainly." Lynn opened her coat, and Mercurio, having deduced this was some kind of complex peekaboo game, shriek-giggled at the sight of LaCroix and wriggled. 

LaCroix smiled faintly, "Lynn, what are your plans?"

"Hmmm?" Lynn smiled, "I'm going to have _Mercurio_ enrolled in a good school, given an adoptive set of parents who'll cooperate with Amara while she's given counseling and housing assistance. With any luck we'll get two generations of devoted agents." 

"It will be convenient," LaCroix took the baby, setting them into her lap, and retrieved a handkerchief to combat Mercurio's spitty bubbles. "To have kine raised to understand the Masquerade." 

"Oh, no. No. We can't do that." Lynn took the opportunity to explain, "It must be, if we do use Mercurio's talents, a personal decision after a normal, human childhood. If we raise any child to believe that Kindred are commonplace and that kine should serve us, we are no better than the Giovanni."

LaCroix flushed with borrowed blood, chastised. "Oh - of course. I didn't realize it would - come across..."

"I don't think you're that kind of person." Lynn agreed, "And, I do think if raised correctly, this one will be an asset to us as an agent, or Kindred. But I'm in no hurry." 

LaCroix was reluctant to hand the baby back, admitting, "I haven't had much time with - children, or... well, anything remotely like this." 

_At Waterloo you practically were a child, though it may not have felt so._ Lynn nodded, instead. "Enjoy this trip, then. We'll come to see them once - only once - in fifteen years. The Nosferatu will keep both of them under secret observation, and if we are satisfied at the development of the fifteen year mark, we'll approach again, fifteen years on from that. It will give plenty of time for any kine to experience and understand human life. You were turned very young." 

"I'm happy for it." LaCroix held the baby close, but also with her words, was firm and certain, "I'm grateful to you. Believe me, I don't begrudge you 'not giving me the time to start a family'. You did nothing wrong." 

Lynn smiled, "You always were a vigorous defender of the truth as you see it. I love your backbone, Sebu." 

LaCroix relaxed, self consciously - her relationship with her Sire was highly informal and improper, by some Ventrue metrics, but Lynn would not have it any other way, and Sebastian had been raised to be respectful to others, not forgetting 'her place' but neither being cowed, or enslaved, by her own Sire. "I just like babies," She added unnecessarily, "But I agree with your proposal. I find it logical, and compassionate." 

"Isn't that--"

"The same thing." LaCroix agreed. "It often is."

Mercurio was not quite 3 years old when he saw his next vampire. At his bedroom window, upstairs in Morris Park, a neighborhood of the Bronx, he had a good view of the parking lot behind the Texaco gas station, lit later than his bedtime. And he saw a person there, who looked almost like an angel. Long, white hair, a white suit. Skin like paper. His eyes went wide beside the spaceship curtains, Mercurio clutched the windowsill and watched. 

The pale individual was waiting there, looking around, and then disappeared into an alleyway - but not before looking right up to the window, and winking.

"What were you thinking?" LaCroix collared Ouija as the Ventrue-Toreador meeting came to a close. 

Ouija took refuge in folly. "I was thinking they should call it teethpaste, since it's for all your teeth." 

"Don't test me. Last Wednesday; you were in the Bronx." 

"Was I? How foolish of me. I could have been mugged." Ouija obediently slowed as LaCroix actually touched their arm, finding this a serious matter after all. "What? What is this about? It was a routine information drop from our --friend, in the sewers." 

LaCroix shook her head. "You were seen by Agent Amara's child." 

Ouija's demeanor remained disarmingly light, "I practically glow in the dark, so I'm not surprised a three year old could spot me." 

This was not the sort of thing to work on LaCroix, who steamrolled ahead, "He's already talking about an invisible friend, a "pale lady". His surrogate parents are not aware of us. We have our own eyes on him, ones who aren't so careless." 

Ouija shrugged expansively, as if to enclose the whole universe into their domain of apathy. "The Sabbat likely have their own eyes on him too. It can't hurt if they know he's being protected. Given how obvious it is that the ghoul cares for her child, and given that she is a former Giovanni,"

"With no secrets of the Clan." LaCroix reminded them.

"The Sabbat are known for their optimism in such matters." Ouija shot back immediately, as if they'd already played this conversation in their head and found themself the victor in several different scenarios. This attitude only inflamed LaCroix, whose natural tendency was to Know Best. The small blonde Ventrue stopped in the doorway, blocking Ouija's egress, "You won't go back there again. I forbid it."

The Toreador idled there, not wanting to muscle her out, in the physical or metaphorical sense. "If my conscience dictates that I ought to, I'm afraid I must. Believe me, I won't endanger the Masquerade. If the child thinks of me as imaginary, so much the better."

Ouija was very frustrating, but LaCroix understood on some level that the Toreador was not an ally to alienate. "I will not ask you kindly to use your common sense."

"Good." Ouija leaned back against the table, catlike, as if they preferred to stay inside the room after all and LaCroix wasn't doing any specific harm to their nightly plans. "Do you want to keep him already? He can't show Ventrue promise as a toddler, surely."

"Quite the opposite. My Sire has impressed upon me the need to keep humans out of our affairs as much as possible. For a cornucopia of reasons." LaCroix bristled, but the Toreador looked approving, as if here were words to unlock a certain set of comprehending algorithms. 

Ouija gestured with an albino hand at the Ventrue, "You are already making enemies in New York. _I'm_ not one of them, believe me. In fact, my Sire and yours go back a little way. I'm just trying to help you." 

LaCroix visibly mastered herself. "I see." She did relax, deciding to accept that as the truth. She'd soon know if Ouija meant harm, and it would be supremely petty for the Toreador to try to kill or poach Amara. When LaCroix told this to Lynn, later, the Elder Ventrue chuckled.

"Some Kindred just like to wind people up." Her Sire reassured her. "We have other concerns."

Regrettably, Lynn was correct. The destabilization of New York's territory took precedence, and LaCroix put all thoughts of the former Giovanni ghoul and her Childe out of her mind. It would not be for decades again that she would think on Mercurio, or see him, not until he was already firmly in the Camarilla fold. And then, news came to LaCroix about a _Sabbat assassination attempt_ on an Elder.

When LaCroix found out the Elder was her own Sire, she knew the time had come to leave New York. The leadership was unstable, corrupt, the local Nosferatu were disintegrating internally and unable to mount a cohesive front against the Sabbat. 

The problem was that the other survivor was Mercurio. A ghoul had walked away from the attempt, and could potentially identify the Sabbat individuals along with her Sire. Not that it made much difference. The Camarilla entity who had leaked the information was not likely to be so careless - but Mercurio’s survival and subsequent identification by the police was a problem. To most, even in the Camarilla, it made him expendable. 

He was, after all, only human.

“Pack your things.” LaCroix instructed, “We are leaving for Los Angeles in half an hour. You will accompany me in lieu of remaining here on the police’s radar.”

It would be cheaper than bail, and more convenient than the almost-impossible, pernicious task of Dominating everyone involved. In time, the crime, in human minds, would be forgotten naturally. As Mercurio remained a Ghoul and failed to age, eventually, the kine would relegate it to another unsolved cold case file, like so many hundreds of others. Or perhaps an inmate, caught in the next few years and of similar countenance, would suddenly and conveniently confess to this bloodbath, as well.

At any rate, an entire country’s length away would be better for everyone. Especially because it was no ‘mere’ mass murder event when it involved her Sire, and the wanton murder of a few fledglings.

“Yes, ma’am.” Mercurio was not bonded by blood to LaCroix specifically, and if she continued to have her way, he would remain so liberated. Each Ventrue in the surrounding Domains could contribute to his monthly donation, keeping his head clear and his loyalty to the Camarilla, not to a single Kindred. 

LaCroix’s phone rang while Mercurio was getting ready. 

“Sorry to hear about your Sire.” It was Ouija. That damned Toreador had flitted inconveniently in and out of LaCroix’s life for the past several decades, and showed no signs of consistent alliance _or_ animosity. 

“She’s fine. A short while in voluntary torpor, perhaps, but she is healthy, and hale, and will recover in due course.” LaCroix remarked, archly, “If you really care to express sympathy, you might look into who did it.” 

“Oh? I thought it was the Sabbat.” The Toreador’s surprise was overtly manufactured. So they did know something. Or, suspected, and perhaps felt comfortable letting LaCroix know, too. 

“I would like specific names.” LaCroix neither confirmed, nor denied, the Sabbat’s involvement. Of course it would be laughed off, if she aired her suspicions too openly. Like everything else LaCroix did in New York, this, too, led to a frustrating, bullheaded array against her for being the European Camarilla outsider, threatening the power structure that she had, in New York’s nascence, actually labored to put up! Deal had left far sooner than they, and the message was clear to certain small cabals of Ventrue. They were unwelcome.

Fine then. Let these fools in New York City choke on the rising tide of lawless, irresponsible Sabbat, who knew no order but their own internal cruelties. LaCroix would go elsewhere, and perhaps finally find a place where she was appreciated.

Mercurio exited, with a duffel bag over one shoulder. “Should I leave my car, ma’am?” 

“Yes. It will be tracked. Better that you make a clean start. I’ll buy you something half decent when we reach the state line.” 

LaCroix tried to smile, to put a good face on the dismal proceedings - _see, I will take care of you_ , but Mercurio simply looked ...nervous. It might have been her - she had a certain ‘off-putting’ quality to some, and attributed it to being uncompromising in her ideals. Or it might have been Mercurio himself. After Lynn’s first visit, he seemed to turn down a bad road, and his criminal lifestyle also made him jumpy, mistrusting. 

Fortunately, the country was in the chill and dark grip of winter, which made the drive from New York City to Chicago, another Camarilla controlled city, safer, and doable - if they didn’t get run off the road by more _suspiciously informed Sabbat_. 

Sebastian slid behind the wheel, and watched the lights of the big city recede, and tried to tell herself it wasn’t the destruction of everything she’d worked for, but rather, a new beginning. If LaCroix had known what was waiting in Los Angeles... 

Ah, but Ventrue were born to involve themselves in messes.


End file.
